Page 33 of Dangerously Yours

I left them where they were, then spent the next couple of minutes getting my spot all set up. I had brought a romance book with me, and it would hopefully keep my mind occupied and off of the man who would put those fictional heroes to shame. I removed my sunglasses, as well as my tank top and cut-off denim shorts. I had just grabbed the sunscreen when a shadow made me jump. Turning to see who it was, I smiled.

“Hey,” I greeted Noah as he stood there grinning at me.

“Damn, seeing you in that bikini has me wishing we were alone.”

I blushed slightly. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a team thing?—”

“I know that. I just meant here with me?”

He arched a brow. “Do I need to have a reason to stop by and help a beautiful woman put on sunscreen?”

“Put on what?” I asked, then looked down to see what was in my hand. “Oh.”

He held his empty hand out, and while I had reservations about letting him help me, I still handed the bottle to him. “Hold your hair up,” he instructed. “Then turn around.”

I did as he asked, and I jumped at the coolness of the lotion. His large hands quickly warmed up the lotion though, and I nearly moaned at the feel of them on my skin. It had been a few nights since we had last had sex, and my body was greedily soaking up any attention he gave me right now. His hands weren’t the only things warm, because when he leaned in close, his heated breath swept over my skin like a caress, making me shiver.

“One of these days, I’m going to take you somewhere and not have to worry about who is around. When I do, I need it to be a warm weather place where you can tease me with a bikini like this one. Fuck, I love seeing you in red,” he told me as his breath continued to arouse me. To an innocent bystander, he simply was helping me with my sunscreen, but the way his hands would linger in certain spots, and the visions he was invoking nearly made me moan.

“Noah,” I warned, more for my benefit than his. At night when we would talk, I would often touch myself, and I was in the privacy of my own home and able to do so. At the moment, I was on one of the city’s most crowded beaches, and especially when so many star athletes were here for a community event.

“I want to take you out and show you off,” he said, causing me to turn.

“You know why we can’t do that.” Panic set in, especially since I thought we were both in agreement over this.

“There’s no reason why you can’t move on with your life, Lulu. We like and care about each other, and we should be able to tell the whole world about it like normal couples, if we so choose.”

“But we’re not a normal couple. You’re one of the most recognizable faces in sports, and a Titan. I’m?—”

“You’re scared, and I understand that. Eventually, we’re going to run out of ways to hide our affection for one another. Aren’t you tired of date nights at your place when the children are with Cade? Tired of me not being able to fuck you to sleep every night, and wake you up every morning with my tongue between your legs?”

I could vividly see that, and I squeezed my thighs together. This man and his wicked words. “Noah, we can’t?—”

“We can do anything you want us to do, but this has to be your decision. I’m willing to wait no matter how long it takes you to?—”

“Noah!” He turned and I looked past him at my son and his best friend. “This is Connor, and he doesn’t believe you were in my house that one day.”

Noah chuckled. “I gave Zachary here a few autographs. Would you like one or two of them, too? I’ll autograph the ball after throwing you a few passes.”

The ginger-haired boy nodded enthusiastically. Noah handed me back the sunscreen, winked, then trotted off with his two adoring fans. I watched the trio, and I realized how natural Noahwas with kids. I continued to watch them for a few more minutes before deciding to start reading. I sat down, got settled in, and read about a dozen chapters before looking up at the sound of Leslie and Amanda’s voice.

They wanted money for the concession stand, so I dug into my purse and handed my eldest daughter my credit card. “Make sure to bring this back before you get back in the water.”

After she agreed, they disappeared, and I sighed. I looked back over to where Noah was, and him and his teammates were demonstrating different moves with the kids. They drew quite a crowd, and Zachary was very attentive to whatever it was Noah was trying to demonstrate. All of the children were excited, and I couldn’t blame them.

Growing up, I had loved eighties hair bands. I had gone with a friend to a Poison concert, and meeting the band backstage had been the highlight of that year for me. It was my sophomore year of high school, and it was when I had finally lost my braces, and my tall, lanky frame had started to fill out. It was the first time in all of my life that I had felt beautiful, but that feeling had faded away again over the last decade or so. It wasn’t until Noah took an interest in me that I felt any of that rekindled.

He was right. The more I thought about it, the sillier I felt. Cade and I were officially divorced. It wasn’t a separation, but a binding dissolution. He was out here with woman after woman, night after night, while I stayed to myself. Granted I was older now, I wasn’t dead, and I supposed that was what Noah had been trying to show me all of this time. He wanted to take me out for a night on the town, and as I stared at him, I realized that I wanted that, too.

I pulled out my cell phone, and I decided to send him a message before I lost my nerve. He would likely not see it until later, but I smiled as I pictured his reaction. There was excitement within me to finally have a real date for the first time in years.

Now, I only needed to think about what I was going to wear. I supposed that would depend on where he planned to take me. Just like that, I was acting like a nervous schoolgirl once more. It wasn’t a bad thing, and as I picked back up with my book, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome now had a face, and a name, despite what the author had written for him. The heroine did, too. The story seemed to jump off the pages as I imagined myself and Noah as the characters. I flew through the pages, and even blushed at the spicier chapters. After a while, the girls returned as did Zachary. I finally ventured out from under the canopy, and joined them in the water before leaving for the afternoon. Later, I needed to find something suitable for a date night, and it would be found on a rack at Mitchells.

NOAH

I still couldn’t believe Lulu had agreed to let me take her out in public, but she had. After giving the community’s kids some throwing lessons on the summer fun day, I had picked up my cell phone and saw the message from her.

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